Going Global: America's Christians After George W. Bush

That America continues to look inward is no secret. While Americans may be among the most info-saturated people in the world, their knowledge of the world around them continues to dwindle. Few Americans have traveled the globe, fewer still have worked in the global marketplace. In the inaugural post of this column, I urged readers to make 2007 the year to go global. My focus was on the business drivers of globalization. After reading "God and Country" in the July 8 Boston Globe, I now know that the need to go global extends far beyond Main Street and Wall Street.

University of Virginia professor of religion Charles Marsh explores why the American evangelical community did "not pause for a moment in the rush to war to consider the near-unanimous disapproval of the global Christian community?" As America launched its war in Iraq (or on Iraq – as the European media sees it), The White House’s Christian supporters stood silent as their co-religionists across the globe spoke in unison against the invasion of Iraq.

Professor Marsh writes that America’s Christians must "reach out to our brothers and sisters abroad. We must reshape the way we live in the global Christian community…" Going global has become an imperative – businesses, students, politicians, thinkers, doers…and now believers must redouble their efforts to understand and integrate with the rest of the world.